Catholic In Name Only? The American Catholic Lawyers Association accuses Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the Obergefell decision imposing homosexual “marriage” on the nation, of failing to “uphold the divine and natural law that marriage is between a man and a woman.” Kennedy is a Roman Catholic.

July 27, 2015, Fairfield, NJ – The American Catholic Lawyers Association (ACLA) announces its objection to the majority ruling in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges regarding same-sexThe marriage. Sodomy, as the Supreme Court itself observed in Bowers v. Hardwicke, before overruling itself a mere seventeen years later in Lawrence v. Texas, is immoral and perverse conduct that the U.S. Constitution was never intended to protect; and the Constitution is forbidden to transgress those aspects of the divine and natural law binding on all men and all nations. Nor was the Constitution ever intended to take away from the States the right to punish sodomy or to codify the truth of both divine and natural law that marriage is between one man and one woman.

Moreover the Obergefell decision is invalid in that two of the Justices were required by the U.S. Code, Title 28, Part I, Chapter 21, § 455, to recuse themselves because of “impartiality that might reasonably be questioned.” Both Justices Kagan and Ginsburg failed to recuse themselves despite having a public record of advocacy of “same-sex marriage,” with both having conducted “same-sex wedding” ceremonies.

Finally, the American Catholic Lawyers Association protests in the strongest terms the actions of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Because he was the deciding vote, God gave him, as a professing Catholic, the opportunity to uphold the divine and natural law that marriage is between a man and a woman. Instead, he did the unthinkable and attempted to overturn that truth with false human reasoning.

As a Catholic jurist, especially one protected by the life tenure that ensures judicial independence from popular sentiment, Justice Kennedy was bound to obey a law higher than his false notion of “liberty,” the law that God has inscribed in human nature. Justice Kennedy failed in this sacred duty, violated the oath to God he took upon ascension to his high office, and thereby inflicted incalculable harm on society.

In a teaching that applies universally under the natural law, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a statement whose publication was ordered by John Paul II, declared that even “[i]n those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application.” [“Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons”, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 3, 2003]

Accordingly, we call upon the Court to overrule this decision at the first opportunity. Further, we call on the Bishop of Justice Kennedy’s diocese or any competent Church authority to impose appropriate canonical sanctions in keeping with the 1983 Code of Canon Law promulgated by John Paul II, which provides: “Those who have… been obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” CIC (1983) § 915. The Catholic faithful are not immune from the authority of the Church when they don judicial robes or enter legislative chambers. On the contrary, the Church imposes a higher duty on Catholic public officials precisely in virtue of their public offices—a duty to defend and protect the common good according to the higher law.

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AMERICAN CATHOLIC LAWYERS ASSOCIATION, INC. is a federally tax-exempt organization dedicated, since 1991, to defending the rights of Catholics in civil and criminal courts throughout the nation, both state and federal, and in public discourse and debate. Donations to the work of the Association are tax-deductible in accordance with IRS Code § 501(c)(3).

“The homosexual political movement is a hate movement that discriminates against Christians….It is absurd to base minority status upon a person’s chosen behavior.”–Dr. Steven Hotze, Campaign For Houston

Texas Supreme Court Decides in Favor of Houston Voters Mayor Parker’s (Un)Equal Rights Ordinance To Be Voted On In November

The Texas Supreme Court ruled today that “the legislative power reserved to the people of Houston is not being honored. The City Council is directed to comply with its duties, as specified in the City Charter, that arise when the City Secretary certifies that a referendum petition has a sufficient number of valid signatures. Any enforcement of the [Equal Rights] ordinance will be suspended…If the City Council does not repeal the ordinance by August 24, 2014, then by that date the City Council must order that the ordinance be put to popular vote during the November 2015 election.” In Re Jared Woodfill, Texas Supreme Court, No. 14-0667, p. 11-12 (July 24, 2016)

This means that unless the Houston City Council repeals the ordinance, the citizens of Houston will have the right to vote on Mayor Parker’s personal, liberal, pro-homosexual agenda this November.

“He who says to the wicked, “You are righteous, “peoples will curse him, nations will abhor him, but to those who rebuke the wicked will be delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.” (Proverbs 24:24–25)

Last year, Houston’s lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, and the Houston City Council passed an ordinance that violates religious freedom of businesses and individuals, grants minority status to those who choose to participate in homosexual activities and allows men, if they claim to be transgender or feel like they are a woman that day, to use women’s public restrooms and locker rooms. This is the reason that the ordinance was known as the ‘Sexual Predator Protection Act’ by the opponents of the ordinance.

The Houston City Charter requires only 17,169 signatures [to repeal an ordinance or put it up to a popular vote]. Almost 55,000 signatures were collected on petitions to allow the people an opportunity to vote on this very important issue. Anna Russell, the City Secretary, certified that there were adequate signatures but Parker refused to accept them.

“Mayor Parker arrogantly ignored the will of the people and the city charter, and unlawfully rejected the petitions,” said Dr. Steven Hotze, President of Campaign for Houston.

Jared Woodfill, Steven Hotze, M.D., Rev. F.N. Williams, Sr. and Rev. Max Williams then filed suit against Parker,Woodfill v Parker. During the course of the litigation, Mayor Parker issued subpoenas to several pastors who were not parties to the litigation, ordering them to turn over all communications regarding the ordinance, the mayor, homosexuality, and other related topics, including sermons regarding these topics.

After a month of trial, Democrat Judge Robert Schaffer ruled in favor of the city and against the people, denying Houstonians an opportunity to vote on this issue. Fortunately, the Texas Supreme Court quickly reviewed Judge Schaffer’s decision and concluded he was wrong and that Mayor Parker had broken the law. Despite Mayor Parker’s efforts to keep her personal, pro-homosexual agenda from the people, Houstonians will now have an opportunity to vote on this ordinance in November.

It’s by design. As I, and others, have repeatedly warned, the establishment of so-called “gay marriage” as a newfangled federal “right,” and the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment simply cannot coexist in harmony. Things diametrically at odds cannot possibly occupy, with any coherence, the same time and space.

The secular left is tripping over itself right now to prove my point. In the wake of last month’s Obergefell v. Hodges opinion – an opinion that somehow divined a top secret “constitutional right” for Patrick Henry to “marry” Henry Patrick – liberals are now demanding, as both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito predicted, that Christian universities immediately abandon recognition of, and obedience to, God’s unequivocal natural sexual order, and adopt, instead, the new pagan orthodoxy.

In a July 14 article in The Atlantic headlined, “Gay Marriage and the Future of Evangelical Colleges,” University of Tampa professor David R. Wheeler asks, “Now that same-sex couples have the right to wed, will higher-ed institutions that condemn LGBT students still be eligible for federal funding?”

Wheeler is not alone in asking. “As cultural evolution on the issue of LGBT rights continues to accelerate, it’s inevitable that some Americans will start asking hard questions about whether it makes sense to allocate scarce public resources to institutions that are not only anti-gay, but proud of it,” opines anti-Christian bigot Barry Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “For starters, can federally supported educational institutions bar married same-sex couples from living together in student housing? I doubt it,” he adds.

In other words, Christian universities must together embrace and facilitate homosexual sin, or lose, at once, both tax-exempt status and access to all students who choose to fund their education via federal loans and grants (which is most of them).

Saner Days: The Bruce Jenner of old, when America–despite all of her problems–was a much saner nation than today.

In a way, Bruce (“Caitlyn”)* Jenner’s pitiable attempt to become a “woman” is symbolic of the precipitous moral and spiritual decline of our nation. The America of just a few decades past–when Jenner won the Olympic Decathlon (1976)–did not honor gender confusion and sexual deviance. But the new America, Obama’s and the Democrats’ America, not only celebrates both perversions here in the U.S. but uses American foreign aid dollars to push them on unwilling nations abroad. (Kenya’s political leaders are warning President Obama not to lecture them on homosexual “rights” and “gay marriage” in his upcoming visit to their country.)

Below, Jenner accepts ESPN’s “Arthur Ashe Courage Award”–not for any athletic achievement but because he fits the media’s and the Left’s upside-down redefinition of “courage.” Defying God and Nature in the most radical way imaginable–attempting to change your own God-given sex–is a lot of things–tragic, impossible, rebellious, confused, irrational, self-deceived–but it is not ‘courageous.’ And yet powerful opinion-makers guide us in a daily exercise of mass-lying as they push this and other politically correct myths on an increasingly dumbed-down culture.

AFTAH has urged Americans and people worldwide to pray for Bruce Jenner, but keep in mind that in his now-public role as a “transgender” change agent, he goes from being one who struggles with gender confusion to an ACTIVIST who promotes the extreme transgender agenda, even to young people and children. As such, like the entire LGBTQueer movement that seeks to impose its warped “morality” on the country, Jenner must be fought at every turn. Americans possessing common sense, morals and biblical faith lack the media’s power–notice ABC’s shameless championing of Jenner as a hero–but we possess the Truth. And Bruce’s distinctly male voice, the hardest thing for male-to-female transsexuals to change, stubbornly reveals that Truth, too. Close your eyes and listen; as my daughter said, “That’s a guy.”

Watch this ABC broadcast and weep–for Jenner, for the death of journalism and for our nation–which is undergoing a “transition” as godless, as destructive and as revolutionary as this poor man in a dress. –Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera

*As a matter of policy and principle, Americans For Truth will not refer to Bruce Jenner by his chosen female name, “Caitlyn”–especially considering his assumed role as transgender change agent, using his influence to confirm other men and women–even boys and girls–in similar gender confusion.

DeWine closes door on filing motion to rehear Obergefell v. Hodges

NOT IMPARTIAL – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiates a homosexual “wedding” before the Court made its decision imposing government recognition of such counterfeit “marriages” on the entire nation. Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan, who also officiated a homosexual “wedding” ceremony, lacked the integrity to recuse themselves from the “gay marriage” case as they should have. AFTAH and Grace Gospel Fellowship will host a “Ted Talk” on the homosexual agenda post-SCOTUS’ Obergefell ruling, Tues, Aug. 18, at 7:00 PM, at Grace Gospel Fellowship Church in Bensenville, IL. Click on photo to enlarge.

Upcoming AFTAH Event: Tuesday, Aug. 18: Scott Lively will join Peter LaBarbera, Pastor John Kirkwood and Rev. Bill Owens of the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) at Grace Gospel Fellowship Church in Bensenville, IL, for a “Ted Talk and Q&A” on: “The Homosexual Agenda and Its Assault on Freedom after the SCOTUS Obergefell Ruling.” Event starts at 7:00 PM; doors open at 6.30; appetizers and light refreshments will be served. Grace Gospel is located north of I-290 on Rt. 83 (Google Maps has it as “Grace-Gospel Center”). The event is free but donations will be accepted.

Folks, this is a long-shot, but worth trying. Our friend Scott Lively of Defend the Family International–who received the AFTAH “Truth Teller Award” in 2011, at the banquet which was terrorized with a brick attack–writes:

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UPDATED: Scott Lively writes:

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has closed the door and said he will not file a motion to rehear Obergefell v. Hodges.

But the battle is not over. There is a meeting with Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today to ask him to file the motion to rehear the marriage case.

Professor Forte’s memo has also been delivered to the AGs in Tennessee and Kentucky. We have four days and one last chance to overturn this travesty–if just ONE judge is sick, absent, or worried about their “legitimacy,” we WIN.

These Attorneys General have standing in this case, and can file a motion to rehear it. No matter where you live, please call them now!

“Please file a Motion for Rehearing in the marriage case. Fight for the voters in Michigan who passed the Marriage Amendment and for our freedoms.”MI Attorney General Bill Schuette: 517-373-1110Ask to speak to a supervisor and explain that we have only 4 days left to file a motion to rehear the marriage case and protect our freedoms!

B) Call the Attorneys General of KY and TN. Urge them to file a “Motion for Rehearing” in the Supreme Court marriage case–before Monday, July 20th. Ask them to present the new information about how Justice Ginsburg violated federal law by officiating a homosexual “wedding” after the oral arguments but before the ruling.

Folks, Robert Reilly is one of this nation’s clearest thinkers in explaining the essence of the “gay” debate and the revolutionary LGBT activist campaign to normalize homosexuality and gender confusion in our culture. That is why we at Americans For Truth chose him to keynote our annual banquet Saturday, October 17, at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Reilly–who has impeccable conservative credentials (see his bio below)–is the author of Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything [order it HERE or on Amazon].

In a recent speaking appearance in Chicago, Reilly agreed with this writer that the pro-family strategy of the last decade or so of focusing on a positive defense of natural marriage and avoiding discussing homosexuality is “the losing strategy. That is how we lost.” Reilly said,

“The entire issue is based on the morality or immorality of sodomy. And once you’re no longer willing to address that issue or if you concede that issue, you have lost, and you’ll get rolled on the religious freedom issue as well.”

Amen.

We live in bizarre times in which even some who profess to be “conservatives” are making the radical case for “marriage” based on the sexual perversion of homosexuality. Shame on them for debasing conservatism and Christianity all at once. But I am greatly encouraged that Reilly’s clear and reasoned voice of principle is beginning to rebuild the foundation for an aggressive defense of Truth on this vexing issue–without cutting corners–for many decades to come. We greatly look forward to Bob’s presentation October 17: please mark your calendars and tell your friends! This article first appeared in the Catholic World Report June 27. – Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

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Farewell Reality

Justice Kennedy and the other Justices joining him in this decision have violated the principle of non-contradiction and have passed over into insanity

By Robert Reilly

First published June 27, 2015 by Catholic World Report

Let us be clear about what has taken place in the Supreme Court decision extending homosexual marriage to the entire nation. Justice Anthony Kennedy has led the Court in affirming a denial of reality and in enshrining darkness as if it were light, blindness as if it were sight.

In this he has been entirely consistent. In the 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas, he discovered a right to sodomy in the Constitution. Then a year ago, in the U.S. v. Windsor case, he fabricated a right to homosexual marriage that obliterated key sections of the Defense of Marriage Act. Now, he has led the decision in removing any remaining provisions in state constitutions or laws that prevent homosexual marriage because he has discovered the right to such “marriages” in the Constitution – specifically in the 14th amendment (which, interestingly, was ratified by states all of which had prohibitions against sodomy).

Each step of the way has required the consideration of the act of sodomy as morally equivalent to heterosexual coitus and, now finally, to the marital act itself. The Obergefell v. Hodges decision has taken the last step in this chain of logic by sanctifying sodomy as a foundation for marriage.

Here’s what is required for one to think this way. The marital act is the highest expression of human sexual powers in that it is by its nature unitive and generative. In Aristotelian language, the full potential of human sexual powers is actually fulfilled – meaning, reached its perfection – in that act. Any sexual behavior that is less than the marital act is by its nature imperfect and a privation of the good of the marital act.

Let us compare it to 20/20 vision in the eye as opposed to blindness. An eye reaches its full potential, i.e. its perfection in 20/20 vision. It cannot see better than that. Anything less than 20/20 vision is a privation of the organ of sight. The further from perfection, the greater the deprivation. Blindness is the ultimate privation of sight. Now if one were to say that blindness is as good as, or equal to, sight, one would be asserting that the privation of a good is equivalent to the good of which it is a privation. This of course would be a violation of the principle of non-contradiction, which holds that a thing cannot be what it is and also be its opposite.

The Supreme Court has now held something similar: that an essentially non-generative and non-unitive act is equivalent to, or as good as, a unitive and generative act. Thus, sodomy and other homosexual acts are as good as heterosexual marital union. Upon this peculiar theory, Justice Kennedy bases his much vaunted freedom for homosexuals to marry. However, the freedom to marry is teleologically ordered by the ends of marriage, none of which can be met by homosexual behavior. The freedom to marry cannot include an abuse of this freedom, any more than the freedom of speech can include the right to lie. But sodomy is to sex what blindness is to sight. It is not only a privation of the good of sex, and therefore of marriage; it is its negation in that is deliberately non-unitive and non-generative. Justice Kennedy and his confrères have therefore violated the principle of non-contradiction. But, as we have already pointed out, this is not the first time. What can account for this consistency?

I’ve had some experience with people suffering from psychopathic paranoia. One very impressive thing about them is that they are usually of greater than average intelligence, and they operate with impeccable logic. Once you understand the premise upon which they are acting, you can see how perfectly logical their behavior is. The problem is that the premise upon which they are acting is delusional – totally unconnected with reality. That is why they are insane.

Justice Kennedy has also operated with impeccable logic, but his premise is totally disconnected from reality. In a way, his view is more disordered than the paranoid person’s distortion of reality because a paranoid person usually will not deny the principle of non-contradiction. Justice Kennedy and the other Justices joining him in this decision have violated that indispensable principle and, therefore, have passed over into insanity. The problem is that the institution in which the Justices operate is not a psychiatric one and they are not its inmates. But they are behaving as if they were; so perhaps it should be.

It is not only the Constitution and democracy that have been traduced by this decision, but reality itself. For the sake of our own sanity and spiritual survival, we must fully resist the Court’s imposition of darkness as light, of blindness as sight, of sodomy as a marital act.

“And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not.”

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About the Author

Robert R. Reilly was Senior Advisor for Information Strategy (2002-2006) for the US Secretary of Defense, after which he taught at National Defense University. He was the director of the Voice of America (2001-2002) and served in the White House as a Special Assistant to the President (1983-1985). A graduate of Georgetown University and the Claremont Graduate University, his books include The Closing of the Muslim Mind and Making Gay Okay.

Homosexual Sadomasochistic “Pride” – Brought to You by Walmart: This float for the New York city homosexual “leather” bar The Eagle rolls down Fifth Avenue at the New York City “Pride” parade Sunday. Note the black-and-blue flag at left symbolizing “leather pride”–the S&M counterpart to the rainbow-colored flag symbolizing “gay pride.” Sadistic/masochistic “leather” fetishes involve extreme behaviors that glorify domination, brutality, pain and human degradation. This includes “master-slave relationships” in which one partner becomes the “sex slave” of his “master.” Homosexual leathermen revel in some of the vilest practices invented by mankind, including hand-arm-rectal “fisting.” Note the policemen looking on at lower left: one wonders what they are thinking. Photos may be reproduced provided credit given as follows: “Photo: AmericansForTruth.org.”

TAKE ACTION: Call Walmart’s Corporate Offices:

Call Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., at 479-273-4000 and choose ext. 3, then ask for the office of CEO Doug McMillon. Or call 1-800-WALMART (925-6278). Write Walmart online HERE (click the “Community and Giving” option). When I called the first number I was routed to Customer Relations. Send the CEO a fax: fax CEO McMillon directly at 479-204-0798. Urge Walmart to STOP financing the celebration of sexual immorality and extreme gender confusion like New York City “Pride.” Tell them that you are offended as a customer that Walmart would sign on as a top-level funder of a New York City’s debauched homosexual “pride” parade that featured nudity, perversion, vulgarity, gender rebellion and even an S&M float being flaunted in front of young children. See also this past AFTAH article on Walmart’s capitulation to the LGBTQ agenda.
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New York City’s annual homosexual “Pride” parade–sponsored Sunday (June 28, 2015) for the first time at the highest “Platinum” level by Walmart Corporation–featured nudity, lewdness, vulgarity and even a sadomasochism float–subjecting the many young children who either marched in or viewed the parade to behaviors and messages that are highly inappropriate for their age and emotional immaturity. [See photos below.]

This AFTAH writer observed most of the parade, which was dominated by major corporate sponsors. One of the bases for the Supreme Court’s stunningly radical June 26 ruling creating a “constitutional right” for homosexual “marriage” is that it “safeguards children and families.” But in truth homosexual parenting harms kids in a variety of ways. It was precisely homosexual (and pro-”gay”) parents who brought impressionable children to observe this highly-sexualized parade glorifying immorality and gender confusion. This is just one example, but a very troubling one, of how “gay parenting” harms children.

I asked a woman who was hostile to me being there about the propriety of exposing kids to lewd behaviors and vulgarity. She said she didn’t agree with everything that goes on at the “pride” parade but that nobody was forcing people to attend it. However, that right to choose does not extend to minor children, who are taken to such bawdy events by their parents and subjected to the perverseness and homo-eroticism that naturally flow from a parade celebrating deviant sex and gender. One such child was a girl standing next to me who appeared to be about 10 or 11; she was evidently dropped off by her father (I saw a man check on her once), who left her alone for hours to view the “pride” parade.

Walmart Champions “Pride” in Homosexuality: Walmart marchers at New York City’s homosexual “Pride” parade carry massive “rainbow flag” symbolizing the celebration of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism (extreme gender confusion). Walmart was a top-level “Platinum” corporate sponsor of Heritage of Pride, which runs the parade and the extended “pride” activities in late June in the Big Apple.

“Gay” Bully Exercises Special Rights
At one point half-way through the parade, as I stood near the corner of Fifth Avenue and 10th Street (near the homosexual “pride”-celebrating Church of the Ascension), two homosexual activists, a man and a woman–started verbally challenging me, escalating to outright harassment. They had figured out that I was not a homosexual enthusiast and were upset that a moral critic was taking photos at “their” parade, even though it was a very public event.

Put down June 26, 2015 as a very tragic day in the history of the United States of America–the day our highest court defied the will of millions of voters in many states to impose counterfeit, homosexuality-based “marriage” on the entire country.

Obergefell v. Hodges: Illegitimate, Unlawful, and a Fraud on the American People

by Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson; June 26, 2015

There is simply no other way to say it.

The Supreme Court’s decision today redefining marriage to include couples of the same sex is wholly illegitimate and unlawful. A nullity. Worthy only to be disobeyed.

Anyone who says otherwise — that the rule of law requires recognition of same-sex marriage — is committing a fraud. And any State official — like Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama — who says that his oath of office requires unconditional obedience to the Supreme Court’s mandate to issue same-sex couples licenses to “marry” is mistaking his oath to the Constitution as if it were an oath of absolute obedience to five justices who happen to be sitting on the nation’s highest court.

As Chief Justice Roberts in dissent has described the action taken today:

“Five lawyers have closed debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law. Stealing this issue from the people ….”

And just who are these lawyers? Justice Scalia reminds us that they are all educated at either Harvard or Yale, from the east- and west- coasts, not from the vast middle of the country, and not a single one an evangelical Christian or a Protestant, and then observes:

“The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage.”

Indeed, from the outset of his bare majority decision, Justice Kennedy did not even act like a judge. Rather, he wrote as if he were an existentialist philosopher seeking the meaning of life, as if the “liberty” protected in the Constitution was a personal quest “to define and express [one’s personal] identity.”

But the Constitution is not some philosophical work written by Jean Paul Sartre. Rather, it is a political and legal document designed by America’s founders to secure the unchanging God-given rights to life, liberty, and property which are deeply rooted in the 18th century soil of the nation. Justice Kennedy showed no regard for these fixed principles, opting for an evolutionary approach to law — asserting that the existential definition of marriage changes with changing times.